Dad of Sick Boy: Keep Anti-Vaxxers Out of School

He's worried that his son, in remission from leukemia, is vulnerable
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 29, 2015 1:03 PM CST
Dad of Sick Boy: Keep Anti-Vaxxers Out of School
A nurse gives a measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination in this file photo.   (AP Photo/Tom E. Puskar)

California parent Carl Krawitt is OK with parents refusing to have their children vaccinated. He just wants their kids to stay away from his kid—and he wants schools to help by forbidding anti-vaxxers from attending, reports NPR. Krawitt's 6-year-old son, Rhett, is in remission from leukemia, and the boy hasn't been able to be vaccinated because of all the chemo he's received. That makes him especially vulnerable to the recent measles outbreak, argues Krawitt, who has asked the superintendent of his school district in Marin County to bar unvaccinated students and thus keep "herd immunity" strong.

“I respect people’s choices about what to do with their kids, but if someone’s kid gets sick and gets my kid sick, too, that’s a problem,” he says. The decision actually rests with county health officer Matt Willis, who tells the New York Times that such a move isn't warranted, at least yet. “I obviously have to balance the responsibility to control communicable disease with everybody’s right to freedom, and the line right now would basically be if there’s a case in this school,” he says. Marin County has not registered a case of measles in the latest outbreak, though nine counties elsewhere in the state have, along with seven other states and Mexico, reports the LA Times. The total number of cases, mostly in California, was at 95 yesterday. (More measles stories.)

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